From Ndubuisi Orji, Abuja
The Peoples Democratic Party ( PDP), Kogi State chapter has rejected the bye-election result for the Okura State Constituency, in the bye-election, held in the area, last weekend.
The PDP, while stating that no election took place in the area, accused the All Progressives Congress ( APC), and security agents of allegedly hijacking the electoral materials.
Consequently, the opportunity party charged the Independent National Electoral Commission ( INEC) to immediately cancel the result and schedule a fresh bye-election in the state Constituency.
The opposition party, in a statement by the state chairman, Enemona Anyebe, which made available to journalists, in Abuja, implored the INEC chairman, Professor Mahmood Yakubu, to intervene in the issue, so as to restore the confidence of the people in the electoral system.
The PDP explained that its candidate, Meliga Godwin, had confronted INEC officials in the field about the alleged hijack of the electoral materials and they they responded that they didn’t have security of their own.
“Shockingly, despite this open admission of irregularities, INEC still went ahead to announce fraudulent results.We ask a simple question: where did INEC and APC manufacture the so-called results from?
” In the 2023 general election for the same constituency, the APC was declared to have scored 8,549 votes, while the PDP was allotted 1,487 votes—a result we rejected as manipulated but still within a range of plausibility.
“However, in this 2025 bye-election, INEC declared an outrageous figure of 55,073 votes for the APC and 1,038 votes for the PDP. How could such astronomical numbers suddenly appear in a constituency where no voting took place in 98% of polling units? This statistical impossibility exposes the scale of manipulation and fraud that took place.
“Even more baffling is the fact that the REC himself, speaking live on AIT News on election day, admitted that there was ‘low turnout of voters.’ If indeed there was low turnout, how then did INEC accept and announce figures that are six times higher than those of the 2023 general elections? This contradiction alone is enough to nullify the entire process.
“We view this as a travesty of democracy, a gross violation of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, and a direct breach of the Electoral Act, 2022.”